Field of Invention
Various embodiments of the present disclosure relate to an image interpretation auxiliary method and apparatus for breast lesion diagnosis, and more particularly, to an image interpretation auxiliary method and apparatus capable of combining a plurality of ‘independent’ ‘3-dimensional (3D) images’ photographed from a breast so as to create an image for interpretation, thereby improving the accuracy of interpretation of a breast lesion.
Description of Related Art
Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed women cancer worldwide. It is a well-known fact that there are particularly a large number of young breast cancer patients in Korea just in their 40s. Breast ultrasonography and MR mammography are sometimes used for precision diagnosis, but it is the x-ray digital mammography that is generally used in regular examinations for breast cancer. Tumors have a 95% possibility of developing into breast cancer, and the x-ray digital mammography technique shows excellent performance in detecting micro-calcification, but its detectability for tumors is less than 80%, which is significantly lower than the tumor detectability of breast ultrasonography or MR mammography. Furthermore, due to the characteristics of 2-dimensional images, breast tissues may appear to be overlapping on a plane, making it difficult for doctors to interpret tumors, and thus the accuracy of detecting a tumor is not more than 50%, which is a problem.
A world-renowned x-ray image equipment company, Hologic, developed the DBT (Digital Breast Tomosynthesis) equipment, selenia dimensions, which doesn't have the problem of breast tissues appearing to be overlapping. This has received approval by FDA and is currently on the market, and has firmly established its stance as an advanced model of x-ray mammography.
With the development of image equipment for breast cancer inspection, techniques that could help image interpretation of those image equipment are also being developed.
For example, techniques for displaying image data of a breast together with results obtained from analyzing the image data, techniques for extracting image data of only the breast area by removing the background from the image data photographed from the breast, and techniques for processing image data of a breast to display only the cross-section of a certain slice area are being developed.
However, conventional image interpretation techniques focus on reprocessing a single image data. Therefore, in the case of interpreting a plurality of image data each created independently by different equipment, the plurality of image data need to be interpreted individually, making it difficult to interpret the data while comparing the exact corresponding positions between each image data.
Furthermore, conventional image interpretation techniques provide image analysis results using 2D models, and are therefore incapable of supporting intuitive image interpretation.
Therefore, there is a need to develop a new technique that could resolve these problems.
The present disclosure was invented based on the aforementioned technical background, and also to not only satisfy the aforementioned technical needs but also to provide additional technical elements that could not have been easily invented by one skilled in the art.